The Voiceless Minority

                                              Above is a photo of Marissa Bode from Getty Images Anyone who follows this blog or knows me knows I love theater and film. I even went so far as to get a degree in drama at college. While I love “straight plays,” which are plays without musical numbers, I am obsessed with musicals. I love all the standard ones such as “Rent,” “Avenue Q,” and “Les Mis.” However, I only knew part of the story because I listened to the soundtrack.  That changed this past November when Wicked, the motion picture, hit theaters. I went to see the movie with my girlfriend, Samantha LeBron, who is not as big a musical fan as I am. Because I didn’t know the story well, I was unaware that a character was in a wheelchair. Universe, please forgive me for being late to the party. The movie was great, and the character in a wheelchair was portrayed extr...

  My inner theater kid is having a brain explosion. I just learned of a cool new theater project highlighting people on the Autism spectrum. I will link the article I read below and a video from South Florida news media highlighting an upcoming event the Autism Theater Project is putting together.   Before I get into my thoughts on how it is about time that theater and the arts regularly highlight persons with disabilities, let me tell you more about the Autism Theater Project (ATP). (See the links below for those who don’t want to read this blog part.)   The Autism Theater Project was started in 2020 by South Florida resident Gena Sims after a relative of a non-verbal student murdered the student she taught. To learn more about the project, you can visit their website at https://autismtheaterproject.org/   The work Ms. Sims is doing for the Autism community got me thinking: Why aren’t there more theater productions involving people with disabilities in t...